Gods and Goddesses
Remembering all the gods and goddesses of Greek Mythology can be a little tricky,so here are lists of all the imortant people you need to know. Major Gods Zeus Youngest son of Rhea and Cronus, husband to his sister Hera. Is related to practically every being in Greek Mythology. And was born out of a donkey's stomach and is half donkey half stupid god. over all zues is a stupid excuse for a god. Goal was to have sex and have kids. Hera Wife of Zeus, Queen of Heaven, Goddess of Mothers and Childbirth, Extremely jealous, vengeful, mean, bossy. Known for destroying Zeus's penis . Hates her children. Oh the irony. The goddess in charge of mothers sucks at being one herself. BTW, she's 'Mom' to Ares, Hephaestus, Elythia, and Hebe. Poseidon Poseidon was the Lord of the Seas, the Earthshaker, and was credited for creating horses. He was a very moody god, and when he was in a bad mood (which he usually was), beware. He was married to Amphitrite, a sea nymph, and together they had a son named Triton. He ate his own pee. He had several love affairs with other women. Be sure to read about Theseus, Medusa, and Pegasus and Delphin. One of his major enemies was Athena. Both wanted what is now the city of Athens to be named after them, and they wanted the mortals to decide what the city would be named. Both gods gave a gift to the city, Athena an olive tree, Poseidon a spring. Everyone got tired arguing about which godshould be the patron and decided they needed a drink and went down to Poseidon's spring. Unfortunately, the spring flowed salt water. All it was good for was looking pretty. Athena's gift provided firewood, shade, olives, and other useful things. The mortals saw that Athena's gift was better and named the city Athens. Click Here for More Info on Poseidon Demeter Demeter is the goddess of agriculture. Ares The bloodthirsty one who doesn't care who he kills as long as there is blood. Athena Daughter of Zeus, and kind of doesn't have a Mom. Her mom was supposed to be Metis, but Zeus ate her. Zeus then got a splitting headache years later, so Hephaestus offered to split open his head for him. Wasn't that thoughtful? Zeus agreed, and Heaphaestus brought down his hammer on Zeus's head, who should appear but Athena? She was one of the three maiden goddesses, and is probably on the smarter side of the Olympians. Enemies: Ares, Poseidon, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Arachne, Medusa, You should never boast that you are better than the gods. Arachne sure learned her lesson. Arachne had an amazing talent with weaving. People from all over came to see her amazing tapestries. Arachne got so proud, she boasted that she was a better and more fun for dry areas of the air show recipes for weaver than Athena, goddess of weaving, which ticked off Athena. Athena came to the girl in disguise as a creepy old lady and asked Arachne if she really thought she was better than Athena. Arachne was like, "Duh!" Athena threw off her disquise and challenged the maiden. They wove. When they were both finished, Athena had to agree that Arachne's art was as flawless as hers, but it made fun of the gods, which was not very nice. Athena ripped the tapestry and struck the girl. Arachne immediately turned into a spider and has weaved her web ever since. Click Here for More Info on Athena Apollo Apollo is the God of Music, Poetry, Seers, and many other things. He has My name is Jeff many sons and daughters each with healing powers, archery skills, and many other talents. He killed The Python for revenge over his mother Leto and to take over Delphi. He placed the Orcale of Meme alishes Delphi on the island and people travelled far and wide to hear the Pythias' prophecies. Pythias were young women who could read the oracle Gaea provided, they are named after the Python that Apollo slayed. Click for More Info on Apollo Artemis Artemis is another maiden goddess, according to some people, since age three. She is the older twin to Apollo, and is the protector of youth and wild things, and is the goddess of the moon, archery, maidens, hunting, and that's about it. Hephaestus Hephaestus was known as the only ugly god. When he was born, Hera(his Mom) thought he was so ugly she threw him off Olympus. He fell for a very long time and hit and bit of land, permenantly damaging his leg. But luckily, a couple of friendly nymphs found him and raised him. It turned out he had a skill for crafting, and he made the two nymphs a ton of jewelry, which Hera noticed on Olympus. Of course she was curious as to where the fine jewelry was coming from. She eventually got the nymphs to spill where they had gotten their baubles, put two and two together, and figured out that this forging wonder was her son. Hera pleaded that Hephaestus join the Olympians,and her comrades agreed. Then it took forever for the gods to convince him to come up to Olympus, but eventually they managed. Unfortunately, he was once again thrown off of Olympus by Zeus when he sided with Hera in an argument. Hephaestus is credited with carving Pandora, the first mortal woman, out of marble. His wife is Aphrodite. Aphrodite Hermes Hermes is the god of Theives, Travellers, and Math. He is the Messenger of the Gods and he delivers souls to the Underworld after they die. He is one of the only people who can get in and out of the Underworld freely. Hermes is really cool, he is in almost every myth recorded. When Persephone was called back up to earth from Hades, Hermes was the guy who retrieved her. Actually, Persephone dated Hermes before she married Hades. Hermes brought Pandora to earth, and such. One of his best friends is Apollo. Hermes is responsible for inventing the lyre. Hermes has always been a troublemaker from the start. On the day he was born, he sneaked away from his mother, Maia, while she was resting and began his career as a mischief maker. He walked along the road and came across Apollo's sacred herd of cattle. He immediately leads 50 of the cattle away, somehow convincing them to walk backward so as to mislead anyone who noticed the missing cattle. Hermes leads the cattle to a clearing near where his mother was and killed two of the cows for a sacrifice to the gods. Also, he found a turtle and killed it, and made a lyre out of its shell. Meanwhile, Apollo came to check on his cattle and totally noticed his missing cattle. He tracked down his cattle to Hermes, who put on his baby act. Apollo accused him of stealing the cattle, but Hermes argued that he had been born earlier that morning, so, therefore, how could he have possibly stolen cattle? Still, Apollo was not convinced. Hermes whipped out his lyre, which totally dazzled Apollo and appeased his anger. Apollo agreed to trade the lyre for the cattle, and the two became great friends from then on. Dionysus Dionysus was the god of wine, theater, parties Hades Hades is commonly mistaken as the god of death. However, Thanos (dab on them haters) is the official god of death. Hades is only responsible for the spirits once they are dead. Not only is Hades Lord of the Underworld, he is also responsible for all wealth, particularly the tresaures found in the earth--gold, silver, ect. Hades is married to Persephone, goddess of spring. He fell in love with her(hey, even the Lord of the Underworld has a heart) and asked permission from Zeus to marry the maid. Zeus agreed, so Hades created his own little plan. He asked Gaea to help him by growing the prettiest, most beautiful flower to attract Persephone. When Persephone went flower picking with some of her galfriends, she saw the blossom, wandered off from her friends, and Hades burst from the earth and maidennapped her. They traveled down to the Underworld, where he married her. Up on earth, Demeter totally freaked out. She searched high and low(but not low enough) for years, all the while refusing to leet a single plant grow on the face of the earth. Everyone was kind of freaking out- all of the mortals were dying due to their crops and livestock dying, and also the earth itself was dying. Finally Helios, personification of the sun, clued Demeter in to where Persephone was hidden. Immediately Demeter complained to Zeus, who realized that life was not going to work out well for anyone if this continued, so Hermes was sent to bring back the goddess of spring. However, Hades, being as crafty as ever, tricked Persephone into eating 3-6 pomegranite seeds while in the Underworld; once you eat food of the Underworld, you cannot leave. Zeus decreed that because Persephone ate the seeds, she would spend that many months of the year with her husband, and would spend the rest of the year with her mother. When Persephone is in the Underworld, we have winter. When she isn't, it is summer. Ta-da! NOTE: Hades is NOT evil. Is is certainly a gloomy character, but that doesn't mean he is evil. He is just a little cranky, but that's understandable. I imagine you would be cranky if your pesky little brother locked you in the basement for eternity and ruined the planet in your absence.(Which Zeus did, on a higher level) Click for More Info on Hades Hestia Minor Gods Persephone Persephone is goddess of spring, and also Queen of the Underworld. Not that that's her fault. Hades kidnapped her, causing Demeter to make the biggest famine in history while searching for her beloved daughter. Lucky for them, Hades tricked Persephone into eating 3-6 pomegranite seeds and makes Demeter miserable every winter. But Persephone got used to her new life. She got called the "Iron Queen" because of her stony heart. Oh, and she also got seriously possesive of Hades. Twice he tried to cheat on her, going for nymphs like Minthe, and then Persephone goes and tramples the poor girl into a mint plant. So don't feel bad for her. Persephone and Aphrodite were enemies. Aphrodite found this kid named Adonis and thought he was totally adorable, and wanted to keep him for herself, except he was only like three years old. She was afraid one of the other goddesses would fall in love with him, so she gave Adonis to Persephone to raise for 18 years. 18 years passed, but Persephone had fallen in love with Adonis and wouldn't give him back to Aphrodite. The goddesses fueded about it so much, they finally had to ask Zeus to decide who would get to keep the youth. Zeus decided that Aphrodite would get him for a third of the year, Persephone would get him for a third of the year, and Adonis could have a third of the year where he got to choose where he would stay. But Adonis prefered Aphrodite to Persephone, so he spent his third of the year with Aphrodite anyway. Be sure to find out what happened to Adonis! Click for More Info on Persephone Eros The little god of love. *sigh* Eros is either the son of Ares and Aphrodite or possibly was the first being ever created out of Chaos. Either way he hung out with Aphrodite an awful lot. Eros was immortal enemies with Apollo, because of a simple arguement. Apollo was boasting that he was more awesome than Eros because his arrows were more powerful. This ticked off Eros, not that you could blame him. In revenge, Eros decided to shoot a love arrow at Apollo to make him fall in love with this nymph, Daphne. But, he shot an iron arrow into Daphne's heart, causing her to hate Apollo with ever cell in her body. Apollo wanted Daphne really bad, so he chased after the girl, which was totally freaking her out. When she couldn't take it anymore, she prayed to her father, a river god, for help. Her father turned her into a laurel tree. Apollo then claimed the laurel as his symbol. Eros is not a baby. He acted like a baby until his younger brother Anteros was born. He is a full grown god. To learn about Eros and his wife, go read about Psyche in the Mortals section! Eos Eos was the personification of the dawn. She had almost as many love affairs as Zeus did. Not that all are recorded. Helios Selene She is the moon. Her brother is Helios and her sister is Eos. Selene fell in love with a sleeping sheperd named Endymion. Instead of asking for him to live forever like her sister, Selene asked that he sleeped forever. He dreamed of holding the moon and he was. They had 50 nymph daughters together. Iris Iris is the Godess of Rainbows. Not only that, but she is also sometimes the personification of the rainbow. Hebe Thanatos The god of death, older brother to Hypnos. Not to be confused with Hades. Hypnos Morpheus Morpheus is the god of Dreams. He dosn't exactly have a face it changes. Triton Triton is the son of Posiden and Amphitrite. He was described as having a fish tale in most Myths. He blows a conch horn and is the herald of the sea. Nemises The goddess of revenge. Nike Hecate Melinoe Phobos Deimos The Fates These three ladies were in charge of everyone's desiny. They were daughters of Zeus. According to some myths, they figured out the future al by themselves. According to others, Zeus instructs them every step of the way. However, it does't seem like Zeus would have enough time to do that. Clotho Clotho spun each threadof life. Guess where we got the word "cloth." Atropos This was the fate who decided the lots of each person:how long you lived, the good and evil in your life, the name of your dog, everything. Lachesis Lucky her. She got to cut each thread of life and then the peson would die. "We know everything!" "Past," "Present," "And future! (Indoor plumbing- it's gonna be big.)" -The Fates Hercules The Muses The muses were goddesses of the arts and sciences. Their father was Zeus, and their Mom was the Titan Mnemosyne. They were led by Apollo, and were also friends with the Graces. Their children include: Orpheus, Hyacinthus, The Corybantes, and Linus. Some of their boyfriends have been: Apollo(big time), Ares, Arcas, Hermes, and also Zeus. Clio Clio was the muse of history. She holds a roll of parchment in her hand. Euterpe Euterpe was the muse of music, especially when it was made for or by woodwind instruments. She holds a double flute. Urania Urania was the muse of astronomy. She sits by a globe and holds a bunch of compasses. Erato Erato was the muse of lyric and love poetry. She plays a lyre. Polyhymnia Polyhymnia was the muse of sacred poetry and hymns. She holds her fingers to her lips. Melpomene Melpomene was the music of tragic poetry. She holds one of those sad faced masks you find at theaters. Thalia Thalia was the muse of comic poetry and poetry about rural life. She holds one of those happy face masks you find in theaters and a shepherd's staff. Calliope Calliope was the muse of epic and heroic poetry. She holds a writing tablet and stylus. Terpsichore Terpsichore was the muse of dance, choral poetry, and song. She holds a lyre. The Furies The Furies were three goddesses(yes, they were goddesses) who were responsible for righting wrongs done to mortals and also being Hades' most faithful servants. They mostly punished mortals for the biggest crimes of the time- offending the gods, killing people, swearing to something that wasn't true, dishonoring the family, you get the picture. The furies had leathery bat wings, serpent hair, whips, and blood dripping from their eyes. The Furies weren't truly evil- they were just making ure that mortals got what was coming to them. The Furies were also known as the Erinyes, the Kindly ones, or by their real names: Tisiphone Alecto Megaera The Graces Thalia Euphrosyne Aglaia The Winds Boreas Zephyrus Eurus Notus